Look Who’s Moderating a Republican Debate: Donald Trump

Donald Trump is preparing for an apprenticeship of his own — as the moderator of a Republican presidential debate.

Trump has reportedly been tapped to moderate a proposed televised debate that would take place Dec. 27 in Des Moines, just about a week before the Iowa Caucus, the first “real” contest in the 2012 race for the Republican nomination.

According to this story on the New York Times Web site, invitations went out to the Republican contenders on Friday from the event’s apparent sponsors — Newsmax, the right-leaning, Florida-based news organization that runs the influential Newsmax.com Web site and the monthly Newsmax magazine, and Ion Television, the TV network once known as Pax TV that is known primarily these days for airing repeats of off-network series such as “Criminal Minds” and “The Ghost Whisperer.”

Trump, of course, would seem at first to be an out-of-the-box choice as moderator for such an event, since that role traditionally has gone to TV news types. But the Times story notes that Trump — the star of “The Apprentice” on NBC who considered running for president himself earlier this year — is very popular with the Republican candidates and also their core constituency of middle-American Republicans.

It was too soon on Friday afternoon to determine how the candidates will reply to this invitation for yet another televised Republican debate, the Times said.